We are an online journal exploring the myriad experiences and ideas from Third Culture Kids around the planet.

Jan 6 Shattered Plates In Mexico

He was twenty-two, Mexican and dreamy. He shattered plates and my heart into a million little pieces, but he loved me like no one else ever did or has ever since. We made our vows in secret, and I ran away from everyone and everything I knew. I readily surrendered myself to a new world, his world, only to dream of escaping the minute I was there. He stripped me bare, yet I never felt more alive or lucky to have loved him.

Your British charm had me at hello. You showed me what trust and honesty meant. I had never been more accepting of my own skin or sexuality as I was when we were aflame together. I wanted more for us, but you never wanted anything other than what we had. I moved to your hometown and wept at Heathrow's Terminal 5 the day I kissed you for the last time. I lost you to the world, but I found myself stronger and better for it.

I swiped right. I don’t know what to call it, this thing that is happening between us, but I like it. It feels silly and fragile and good. I’m never too far away from a new place when I’m holding your hands. Yet I feel right at home when I look into your eyes. If what sets us apart is our cultural upbringing; our common ground is your interest in the East and my fascination with the West.

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I'm attracted to other international souls.

As a TCK, I am fascinated by different cultures and I seek to be a part of them in exchange for mine, no matter how muddled it might become.

Whether it's eloping with a Mexican at 23, finding solace in the arms of a man in Canada after a bitter divorce or feeling butterflies again as he holds my hand walking through London town, my interest and comfort with other cultures has led me to all corners of the world and to experience the highest of the high and lowest of the low.

It's never easy to mix cultures when it comes to relationships, we all know that. Yet the challenge is precisely what is so wonderful about it. It is tremendously rich and rewarding, even when it is painful and confusing.

I have never learnt so much about myself, people and the world as I did when I was trying to love someone so different from me.